Steve talks about spending all his time inside, rehashing the case and making movies. Spoilers / At the end, instead of fixating on the question I had during the novel (is Steve innocent or guilty?), I was instead thinking about his future.
We feel his fear and pain and desperation more viscerally, and it’s more obvious where he’s lying and why. We can actually see his parents crying, instead of his necessarily detached self explaining why they are upset. However, this time I was on Steve’s side the whole time. Doubt is still introduced, not only in the defense attorney’s mind, but also in the reader’s mind. It isn’t often I will promote a graphic novel over the original work of literature, however in this case I feel that the comic does a better job of conveying the story and portraying the author’s original intent. With the script/journal format appearing mainly at transitions, the feel of the original is preserved (and continues to help with scene changes) but the visual transition makes the plot, and characters, so much easier to recall. This is a relatively short book with a huge cast of characters – everybody involved in the trial and a variety of people from Steve’s life. Here we SEE what Steve Harmon is picturing, which is so much better. In contrast, this graphic novel took me a few hours to read and is being reviewed instantly – because I can certainly recommend it. You might recall my review of the novel Monster, which took me more than six months to read and review (thankfully it was checked out from a library I work at, so I could keep renewing it). Meanwhile, we are seeing all of this through the lens of one desperate young boy – what is the truth? But it is also the story of a criminal justice system where the mostly white cast assumes all the power over the mostly black “monsters.” Then there are also flashbacks that add more information about Steve Harmon and the other characters which call into question his real role in the murder. At first glance it is the straightforward tale of a boy who is accused of assisting in a murder during a robbery-gone-wrong, mostly expressed through his recreation of the trial as a screenplay and his diary notes from prison. Monster is a complicated novel of a story-within-a-story.
This is a graphic novel adaptation of Monster. Lexile: GN420L ( What does GN mean in Lexile? ) Monster: A Graphic Novel by Walter Dean Myers, adapted by Guy A.
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